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Working-Class Cyborg

Monday, April 20th, 2009


People are angry at Rob Spence. It’s April Fools’ Day, and his prank of choice was to make a morning post on Facebook that a battery exploded in his eye and that he was in the emergency room awaiting…well, whatever sort of treatment such an accident requires. But he’s quick to shift the blame.

“That was your idea,” he scolds Kosta Grammatis, the brilliant 23-year-old aviation electronics engineer who’s been living in his home office for the last two months. Kosta laughs him off and goes back to his dinner. We’re sitting in Harry’s (along with BME photographer Phil Barbosa), a bar near Rob’s home in Toronto’s Parkdale neighborhood. Less than an hour ago, we were in Kosta’s makeshift bedroom while he assembled a prosthetic eye for Rob—a clear, rounded silicone case housing a small red LED light—to give us an idea of the technology with which they’re experimenting. To be fair, his April Fools’ joke seems entirely plausible.

When Rob was 13, his right eye was damaged in a shooting accident on a family member’s farm. Six separate surgeries were performed over the years to repair the eye’s vision, but each time it regressed, and the eye grew larger, turned white, and became increasingly disfigured and painful. “I’ve had a doctor stick a needle straight into my eye about 10 times,” Rob says, “and I was thankful for it. Like, ‘Please stick the fucking needle in my eye.’” Several years ago, the ophthalmologist father of a friend of his told him he had to prepare to let go of his eye, and after a year and a half of deliberation and anxiety, he decided it was the right move. “It’s a hard thing to let go of a part of your body,” he admits, “but it was time for that garbage to go.” Three years ago, he finally had it removed. Now, Rob, 36, a filmmaker and videographer, wants to make good use of the vacant lot in his face: He’s trying to build a miniature video camera to wear as a prosthetic eye in the empty socket.

This is where Kosta came into the picture. He contacted Rob after hearing about his project and realizing, hey, he was more than qualified to run point on this. (Or, at least, he was no less qualified than Rob.) The two met in San Francisco while Rob was there visiting his father—Kosta, at the time, was squatting in a coop warehouse—and found they shared a similar vision. Kosta came to Canada and took up residence in the back room of Rob’s house, and the two have been teammates since, trying to devise a working prototype. The main difference between their operation and a proper lab, of course, is funding; that is, they have none.

Rob is broke, he says. His credit cards are maxed out. He borrowed $500 from his little sister earlier in the day. Plus, you know, he’s trying to build the world’s first miniature prosthetic eye camera, and now he’s pissed off a whole lot of people with this April Fools’ stunt. Now, thinking about the LED he was just wearing in his eye, he realizes the whole joke could have thoroughly backfired. “Imagine if the battery really had blown up in my eye tonight after I’d cried wolf on Facebook?” he says. He remembers, though, that his brother-in-law had a good point. “Do people think if I’d really blown my eye apart, and I was sitting in the emergency room, that I’d be talking about it on Facebook? It’s come to the point where people feel like sitting in the E.R. with my eye bleeding profusely is a perfectly reasonable time to update my Facebook status.”

Except, if anyone were to do such a thing, Rob would be a prime candidate. Ever since the initial accident, he’s developed a talent for drawing attention to himself. “When you’re a kid,” he says, “and you have a dramatic accident, it’s like the origin of a super hero. When I came home from the hospital, I’d turn to my little siblings and say, ‘My eye really hurts, can you get me a glass of lemonade?’ And they would actually fuckin’ get it for me.”

The Tiny Tim act only lasted so long, though, and, with his current project in mind, he realizes investors won’t be refilling his glass if all he has to offer is a sympathetic story. This is the part of the job Kosta calls “skepticism management.” According to Rob, the typical engineer mindset is that a person should build a prototype of an invention first, be modest about what he’s created, and then start showing it off to people. Not him. He’d rather create excitement for the project among the people working on it, the people expecting and, ideally, the people financing it.

“I’m all about the sizzle before steak,” he says, grinning, “because sizzle can buy you steak.”

Kosta perks up at this. “We shouldn’t even be building anything,” he says. “You don’t even need me.” Kosta is equal parts easy-going, sun-kissed southern Californian and genius scientist; it’s a disarming combination. And, to be sure, Rob does need him. The pair have two working prototypes for Rob’s camera-eye, success Rob attributes largely to Kosta, due to both his technical skills and his ability to seek out the right people to do the jobs they can’t. Thus far, they’ve built devices that create wireless NTSC signals—the sort of standard wireless signal a television uses—and are now working on getting this to work in sync with a miniature camera and a battery, all attached to a printed circuit board, all of which has to fit inside a prosthetic eye.

What about what we saw earlier in the evening, though? Rob sporting a glowing red light in his eye? Does that count for anything?

“Oh,” he says, taking a draw off his scotch, “that’s just bullshit for press like you.”

“Yeah,” Kosta adds, “that’s just for your entertainment.” Right. Sizzle before the steak and all that. And all of a sudden, they’ve just driven a truck through the fourth wall. It’s an admittedly respectable sort of transparency: Phil and I thought we’d captured something unique for our article (which we had), and Rob and Kosta thought they’d done due diligence in drumming up some more attention for themselves (which they had). They’re not approaching this project like seasoned veterans of the scientific community: They’re trying to make a breakthrough on a shoestring budget.

“Can you write, like, ‘Rob and Kosta looked emaciated, as if they hadn’t eaten for days’?” Kosta asks, laughing.

“Hey!” Rob says, pointing a finger at Kosta. “You look emaciated. I look fuckin’ fine.”

In the search for funding, they scared off National Geographic by requesting $75,000; apparently, the publication thought they could achieve their goal with closer to $10,000. This is a common experience, Rob says, and one that betrays a sort of myopia. He compares it to Alexander Graham Bell’s first success building a telephone: “How much more money do you think he needed to build a robust version that worked all the time?” Even as far as video devices go, he thinks he’s being reasonable. “People tell me I’m crazy if I want a hundred grand to build the eye,” he says, “but the standard high-definition camera they shoot with on T.V. is worth about $120,000 to buy. How much do you think it cost to develop?”

So in the meantime it’s bullshit red lights for guys like me, but even stunts like that can be beneficial—that’s the sort of sizzle that earns them credibility with the cyborg culture. This, it seems, is something of a concession for Rob. Support is welcome regardless of the source, he says, but this is a segment of society with a bit of an identity crisis. Lots of people have fake eyes, so what’s the difference between a cyborg and someone who just has a prosthetic?

“Someone with a wooden leg is not a cyborg,” he says, “they’re a pirate. Meanwhile, I have a fucking eye patch on…but if I take off my eye patch and you see a red light, then I tap into the cyborg culture that you know and love.” This, it seems, is the extent of the difference. “That’s really what a cyborg is. A fake eye with a red light in it is different from a fake eye.”

And therein lies the problem with the amorphous definition of “cyborg.” Clothing, he says, technically makes you a cyborg, because it enhances a human’s ability to live in the world as a naked animal; the same goes for glasses, pacemakers, breast implants and any other invention people use every day that’s been welcomed into the mainstream. “It’s adding shit to our bodies within the context of popular culture,” Rob says, that makes a person a cyborg.

“That’s why we went for the Terminator eye,” Kosta admits. “It’s quickly identifiable.” But the truth, he says, whether or not he’s just trying to sell me sizzle, is that once funding comes through, the possibilities for Rob’s eye are endless. He talks about an idea for installing a laser in the socket that he could bounce off mirrors and panes of glass, and with the right piece of technology, the reverberations off those surfaces could be translated to hear what people are saying in the rooms in which said glass could be found. “We could make you a bionic eye-ear! We could have a little transmitter that transmits audio into your ear.”

Rob belches in response. One of his dreams is to be able to screen movies from his eye. “What I want to do eventually,” he says, “is walk around always shooting Breakfast At Tiffany’s onto a wall, because chicks love it. And Dukes Of Hazzard, because guys love that. That’s why I’m mutilating myself and letting Kosta stick batteries in my face—because mostly, I want people to love me.”

He’s joking, but there’s a kernel of truth there. As much as Rob doesn’t deign to treat the loss of his eye with much seriousness, he admits to the difficulties in adjusting to life after the surgery. “You don’t feel quite right,” he says, “you don’t feel like you’re as attractive as you used to be, you feel like you’re not quite the man you were. It might sound stupid, it’s not like I lost a leg or something, but you don’t feel quite as confident as you used to.

“But,” he says, “if you start to feel like you can actually be cooler by replacing the shit you lost with something better than other people have access to, then that’s when you start to feel pretty good about yourself.”

“There are already scientists working on connecting [prosthetic eyes] to the optic nerve,” Kosta says, “so imagine if, all of a sudden, having a night-vision eye was possible and available to people who were missing an eye? Wouldn’t you be like, ‘Fuck, I want a night-vision eye’?”

And so is presented a modern predicament. For years, it seemed like the ostensible purpose of prosthetic limbs was to as closely resemble the original appendage as possible. Recently, however, this has been uprooted by a focus on mimicking the function of the missing part (and, in some cases, exceeding the original’s capabilities), with aesthetics becoming a secondary concern. Now, these two paths are converging; limbs and organs that look “normal,” but that carry possibilities far beyond what the human body can accomplish in its natural form.

Rob foresees a disturbing trend. “One day,” he says, “I might have a grandkid that will actually want to remove an eye voluntarily, and I would tell that kid not to do that. But, I know that kid would just say to me, ‘Well, grandpa, you did it!’” For him, there is a significant difference between him augmenting himself because he lost something, and a person purposely chopping off a limb with the intention of “upgrading” it. He worries that what he’s doing, playing the role of “Eyeborg” and whatnot, will make people think that he thinks it’s cool to remove parts of their bodies. “Which,” he says, “it’s not at all.

“But,” he admits, “I’m open to the idea that that’s where things are going.” He goes on: “I think the main point is, how can our kids shock us? My kid could be a gay punk rocker and I’d be like, so? I don’t give a fuck. Gay punk rocker—big deal! The way they’re going to shock us is, ‘Dad, I’m gonna get a new fuckin’ hand.’ And we’re going to say, ‘Well, I’m not sure you should be doing that.’ But we’ll be the worst offenders, because we’re all in the movement. We won’t like it. Even though we’re already buying into it, we won’t like it.” It’s the duality of the conscientious cyborg: How do you balance a desire to improve your own life—and find someone to give you hundreds of thousands of dollars to do so—with not wanting to set a precedent for future activities of which you already disapprove?

But maybe this is all just so much navel-gazing without grant money in hand. Until funding comes through to ensure Rob will be able to cement his legacy as Grandpa Hypocrite, there’s still the matter of living his life as a one-eyed man—which is not without certain high points.

“When he sees other people with eye patches, they give each other high-fives,” Kosta says, laughing. This reminds Rob of Steve Fonyo (“Terry Fox light,” as he calls him), a Canadian who lost a leg and, in the spirit of Terry Fox, ran across Canada; unlike Terry Fox, however, he made it the entire way.

“Except,” Rob says, “he was a drunk, and so was his father driving the van. They made it the whole way across and he never died, but he never gets any credit. And I did an interview with him, and I asked him, ‘So, Steve, did you get laid? When you were running across Canada with your one leg, did you get laid?’

“And he goes, ‘Oh yeah.’ And then, after a pause, ‘Big time.’”

Rob isn’t quite as shameless, but he’s got what seems like a go-to maneuver nonetheless. “When you’re at a party and you’re wearing an eye patch, girls are thinking, ‘Are you vulnerable? Or are you mysterious? Or are you a bad boy? Or are you all three of those things?’” he says, cracking up the table and breaking into a snort-laugh of his own. “They’re curious, so all I do is say, ‘Well, I’m curious about what your boobs look like. This is my raw fuckin’ naked eye here, it’s vulnerable for me and I don’t feel so great about it. So, maybe it would make me feel better if you showed me your breasts.’ And inevitably, it’s a fairly good deal.”

Kosta, the sidekick, is picking up life lessons. “You have to have some kind of emotional experience,” he theorizes, “because they’re going to have a unique emotional experience.”

“That’s the thing,” Rob says. “If you’ve got an eye out, and you show someone the flesh inside, it’s almost like you’ve got a pussy in your head. That’s what it feels like. They always want to see it. ‘Pull your patch aside and show me what’s in there.’ And when I do, it’s the same look as a 13-year-old boy who wants to see a pussy for the first time.”


All photos © Philip Barbosa / BMEzine.com 2009. Video is coming soon!

Visit the Eyeborg project online at EyeborgBlog.com. Rob can be found here, and Kosta can be found here.

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Full Coverage: Links From All Over (Dec. 17, 2008)

Wednesday, December 17th, 2008

Jud Winters (Photo source: MySpace.com)

[About.com] Sad story here, folks. Last week, Jud Winters, a 21-year-old tattoo artist in Nampa, Idaho, was severely burned after trying to light a bonfire, sustaining second- and third-degree burns on 90 per cent of his body. He’s undergone two surgeries already, just to remove burned tissue, and doctors are only putting his chances of survival at 30 per cent. The Garrity Tattoo Shop in Nampa is holding a raffle to raise money for Winters’s family, the statement for which can be read below:

Jud Winters, a 21 yr. old Nampa tattoo artist, was recently involved in a horrific burning incident which resulted in the loss of 90% of his skin. He is clinging to life at the SLC Burn Center, with a 30% chance of survival, and his family by his side. On Behalf of Jud Winters’ family, Garrity Tattoo will be hosting a raffle of donated items to help benefit them, and help assure that their basic needs (food, clothing, shelter) are met during this time. We are currently asking for donations of every type, and plan to raffle the items with a drawing and appreciation BBQ scheduled for Saturday December 20th at 12:30. This young victim’s life will be forever changed, as will the lives of all who knew and loved him. During this time, where we are so powerless to help Jud directly, we must not forget the ever growing needs of his family, and do our part to assure that his family knows that their community is here for them. As the month progresses, and the donations are made, we will keep an updated listing of raffle items available in our MySpace blog. Please tell everyone you know that for the price of a $2 raffle ticket, they could win some great stuff, and support a great family with firm ties to our community. Come by the shop at 3116 Garrity Blvd (18) today to donate your items and buy your tickets! If you have any questions, please call 461-3181

The shop has received tons of donations already — gift certificates from other tattoo shops, rare albums, sporting goods — and really, this is about as good a cause to support as any. If you’re in the Nampa area, try to pay the shop a visit.

This link features video of a news broadcast about the story.

[feelunique.com] Ha ha, now this is a great idea. If this terrible recession has left you jobless and hopeless and hungry, how about you, I don’t know, get some temporary tattoos on your eyelids? For money? Sure, why not.

With the credit crunch continuing to bite why not try an alternative way of making money by renting out your eyelids as advertising space.

feelunique.com is offering people the chance to earn 10 pence per wink in return for displaying the company’s logo on their eyelid space. People who sign up to star in the campaign will have the feelunique.com logo temporarily transferred onto their eyelid and will be paid on a Pay Per Wink (PPW) basis - up to a total of £100 per model.

Amy Rebours of feelunique.com says:

“We all take notice when we’re being winked at so what better way to advertise feelunique.com than on people’s eyelids. It’s a genuine marketing first, which encourages people to spread a feel-good winking moment and earn some much-needed extra income in the process.”

A “marketing first” indeed! I can’t believe nobody has never thought of paying people to, huh, blink? Really? I’m kind of surprised that these marketing geniuses behind this one didn’t get “Pay Per Wink” trademarked, as this is clearly the new frontier.

[Ananova.com] Here’s a good one: Some donkey gets pulled over for some reason, tries to give the cops a fake name, but, whoops, he had his name tattooed on his neck:

Darnell Frazier, 25, and a friend were pulled up by a police officer in St. Paul, Minnesota, reports the Star Tribune.

Frazier told the officer he had never had a photo ID and claimed his name was Darnell Lewis.

The officer, however, noticed that the man had “Frazier” tattooed in large letters on the side of his neck.

Police spokesman Peter Panos said Frazier was arrested on four misdemeanour warrants, including driving while disqualified and no proof of insurance.

Frazier then tried to flirt with the officer, batting his eyelashes repeatedly, but forgot that he had his initials temporarily imprinted on his eyelids, thereby giving up the game even further. He did, however, make a cool 60 pence, which is something, I guess.

[BMEzine.com] Rachel posted this last night, but here it is again for good measure — her words follow:

Canvas Los Angeles, the boutique and gallery of the tattooer arts, was robbed on December 12th. Thankfully, none of the gallery’s staff were injured, but sadly, two pieces of artwork were stolen. The two pieces stolen were by Alex Garcia and Guy Aitchison.

This was a truly despicable act. It’s a violation, pure and simple, without any justification whatsoever, and it’s an insult to both the art and tattoo communities. Theft of any sort is inexcusable, but when you steal work from an artist, you steal the thing they produce, and you rob them of their livelihood.

What we want more than anything else is simply for these pieces to be returned. If those responsible for this theft bring the paintings back, or if they are otherwise returned unharmed, Canvas LA will not press charges. All we want is for the pieces to be returned to the gallery — this is really just a matter of supporting our community, plain and simple.

“Minty Fresh Death” is oil on masonite while “AutoMech #2″ is acrylic on canvas. Both paintings are approximately 8×10 and were framed at the time they were stolen. Please keep an eye out on eBay and anywhere else you may see art for sale or displayed, and report anything you see to info@canvasla.com. Thank you all for your help and support.

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BME’s Big Question #2: The Melancholy of Anatomy

Friday, September 26th, 2008


Welcome to BME’s Big Question! In this weekly (hopefully) feature, we’re going to ask a handful of the community’s best and brightest piercers, tattooists, heavy mod practitioners and shop owners for their opinion on one question or issue that’s affecting the body modification community. Many, many thanks to all of the contributors.

If you’d like to be a part of future editions, or if you have an idea for an issue or question you’d like to see addressed, please e-mail me.

This week’s topic:

Aside from not wanting to work on a minor, have you ever refused to do a certain procedure? What would make you refuse to do one? Are there any you’ve done that you now regret?

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Ryan Ouellette

I refuse stuff all the time, or, more often, I ask people to book appointments a few days away. I don’t get picky with average piercings, but with the trickier stuff like microdermals, surface work, genital piercings or complex cartilage I really prefer the person to have some kind of understanding of the “risks.” If someone seems a little blurry on the details I’ll explain the basics of healing and aftercare and the chances of a problem coming up. If they seem to get it then I’ll either get them on the spot or have them book an appointment. If a person just gives me that blank stare when I explain something or is obviously trying to rush into something, I’ll usually tell them to research it more and come back at a later date. I understand that it’s their body and choice, but I don’t want to deal with a serious problem coming up because I valued someone’s money over my own reputation or ethics.

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Joy Rumore

I have not refused to do work based on the image to be tattooed, nor have I refused to work on someone because of differing beliefs. I’ve tattooed gang members, white supremacists, and a variety of unsavory characters in general. Few and far between are those I flat out refuse to work on, but they are out there.

Occasionally, a couple will come in where the woman is supposed to get the tattoo, but her husband/boyfriend is doing all the talking. It’s always the same set up: The man will describe how he wants the tattoo on her, what colors I should use, how it should be angled, how it will look most sexy, and she will just stand there looking nervous. The dude will make some snide remarks about me being a female tattoo artist and then expect me to carry out his every whim. When it is clear that she’s terrified, I walk past the man and ask the woman if she wants to get tattooed. There’s generally some shrugged response about, “Well, he likes it,” and zero eye contact. Then, usually when I turn to the man and announce, “She can come back when she wants to get tattooed, but I will not be tattooing her today,” insecure and dominating men don’t like it when a woman tattoo artist tells them how things are gonna be. Curses are shouted and they go away. No big deal.

Other times, I have refused to work on people based on their interactions with me and the “vibe” they’ve given off. In one of these cases, I ended up feeling threatened and unsafe.

Before I owned my own place, I worked at a shop in downtown Providence, Rhode Island. I had a customer approach me about doing two dog portraits. I was game, he was game, it seemed like it’d be a fun time. He brought some pictures in and we started to set up a date for the appointment. I also informed him at this time that he needed to bring in his ID and fill out paperwork on his appointment date.

He said that he didn’t give out information and he wouldn’t let me copy his ID. He raised his voice and continued that he didn’t do that kinda stuff, alluded to problems with the law, and said he couldn’t leave a trail and allow people to find him. I apologized and I told him that those were the state’s regulations I was required to follow and that I would lose my tattoo license if I did not comply. He got agitated. I repeated what the problem was and further explained that the paperwork doesn’t get sent to the state, but rather sits in a box, filed away, for seven years. He still was nowhere near happy with the situation. He raised his voice more and began to verbally turn his anger on me. After going over the same questions for another 10 minutes or so, I apologized again, and he finally left the shop all pissed off.

This is where it gets weird.

The would-be customer began to drive by the shop everyday very slowly. Sometimes he would park outside the shop on the street and just stare into the building. Sometimes he would get out of his car and lean against it just hanging out for no reason. After about a week of this behavior, he came back with the pictures of his beloved pooches in hand and he told me he wanted to get the tattoos done. I reminded him that I could not do the tattoos without ID and paperwork. He got agitated again. Began saying things that didn’t make any sense — almost like he was pleading his case. By this time, I had made my mind up that he was more trouble than he was worth.

I informed him that I could not do the tattoos. He conceded that he would get his ID and fill out the paperwork as long as I promised no one saw them. I said I couldn’t promise that because the Health Department has every right to come in and inspect them whenever they would like. I continued by explaining that I would not tattoo him at all. He was confused. I told him I was uncomfortable with the situation. I didn’t like him driving by being menacing, and that I was simply refusing to work on him, period.

I thought he was agitated before? Ha! He yelled at me, told me I couldn’t do that, stomped around, called me a few choice names, and finally left the building after I yelled back at him. He continued the weird drive-bys and hanging-out business for another week. I let all the guys I worked with and the business owners on the same block know what was up in case something escalated. It never did. He was creepy for a while and yelled things occasionally. Finally, he stopped hanging around and I never saw him again. I’m really happy I never did those tattoos and I have refused to work on people here and there who present the same sort of attitude.

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Steve Truitt

I have refused to do a lot of procedures over the years. Everything from people wanting their tongues pierced that are far too short for it to be comfortable for them and people with inappropriate navels wanting them pierced to people wanting far more extreme modifications.

If I don’t think the procedure has a good chance of working out in the long run, then I don’t do it. Also, if I think the procedure is too dangerous, or the person doesn’t fully understand what they are getting into, or the person is obviously mentally unstable I don’t work on them. There are also procedures I’m just not comfortable attempting even though I’m sure I have the skills to do them. For example, I’ve had a certain IAM member ask me on numerous occasions to do a penectomy on him. While I know that I could safely do that procedure, it’s not something I would ever attempt on anyone. I also wouldn’t amputate anything on anyone and have been asked to do that quite a few times as well.

All the procedures I do, I do because I like them — either how they look once they are finished, or doing the actual procedure. If I’m not into something, I don’t really have a desire to do it. I know of quite a few artists that are motivated by the money, but for all the more extreme mods I do, I don’t really care about the money. I do them for the pleasure of doing them and/or the end results. Because of that, I can’t think of any mods I’ve done to someone that I regret doing.

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Allen Falkner

Regret? Well, regret is a strong word. Yes, over the years I have made my share of mistakes, and no, not every modification I have done has turned out perfectly. This is true for any practitioner. However, I have always tried to work within my abilities. Not to say I haven’t done quite a bit of experimentation and exploration over the years. I have tried my hand at tattooing, scarification, implants, branding and various other things. In the end, I discovered piercing, suspension and now laser tattoo removal are my real passions and the other arts are best left to people that can devote more time to them.

As for refusal, the list goes on and on. In the early stages of my career, there was almost nothing I wouldn’t try. OK, maybe not the uvula. I remember when that piercing started to get a lot of notoriety. Do I think I could have pulled it off? Sure, but I felt the risks were too high so I left that one alone. In fact, I think it was that piercing that shaped me and made me realize that I had my limitations and should work within them.

This actually brings me to the real issue. One of the biggest shortcomings of the body modification industry has been and always will be ego. Not to say I don’t have one. We all do. It’s human nature. My point is that practitioners should work within their abilities and not let ego rule their decisions about what they can and cannot do. I’m not saying we shouldn’t push our boundaries. The only reason our industry has come so far is because of people constantly striving for the next great mod. It’s just that people should work within their abilities. Having every procedure imaginable on your resume might look good to you. But practitioners should really think about their client’s well being before attempting something that they’ve only seen on BME.

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Meg Barber

In this line of work, there are often occasions that arise where it’s best to not do a certain procedure on a client. Situations that immediately come to mind are those in which the client doesn’t have the proper anatomy to support the piercing that they are interested in, the client being intoxicated, the client being flat out belligerent in dealing with me or my staff, etc.

I’ve turned down scores of people over the years for those reasons, the most common one being anatomy related.

If I have a client interested in an industrial piercing who has no defined curl to the top of their ear, I will explain to them why that particular piercing isn’t the best option, and work with them to find one that is. And there’s always the classic issue of not having the best navel to support a piercing …

But I can’t say I have ever done a piercing I really regretted doing. I’ve always been pretty adamant about sticking to my guns when it comes to putting my client’s safety and successful healing first. I feel that as a piercer, we need to have the ability to say “no” to our clients when it’s warranted, and nine times out of 10, the client will appreciate it.

The thing I have noticed more and more in recent years, though, is the willingness to experiment on clientele for procedures that we aren’t sure of. It used to be, if there was a new or wacky thing you wanted to try, you did it on your roommate, or your lover, or on yourself … and those were pretty much your options. These days, it seems piercers are drawing from their client base for these experiments, and that is simply dangerous and foolish.

It really brings to the forefront the questions of, “When is it OK to experiment on clients?” and, “Why isn’t the word ‘no’ being used more in circumstances when it would be?”

The simple answer is a blanket “never.” A more in-depth answer would be, “When the procedure is in fact tested, just not in this particular situation.” A good example would be fully informing a client that they have a less than ideal navel for piercing, them insisting on having it done anyway, and then the piercer using a different placement to make it work. Remember all the 45* angled navels of the ’90s on those less than perfect navels? Case in point. No harm done really, just a little trial and error. And a few funky navel piercings as a reminder.

(The last answer, and the most common it seems in terms of today’s hot-shot piercers, is, “Always! I have ideas I need to test!”)

The next question that begs to be answered is, if clients are acceptable guinea pigs, then, specifically, which clients are the best for this?

Again, going back to basic answers, you have, “The heavily pierced client who is extremely careful and knows their body enough to understand what may happen,” who would be, of course, the best person for that role, and, “Who cares. If I tell the client the risks, and they still want it, OK.” Which is, of course, how it seems things go these days.

Personally, I will admit to playing around with different theories on how things will heal with clients. But — and there is always a “but” — I was very careful to only do things that were deemed “experimental” on clients that were heavily modified, who were fully informed, and whom I knew I would see often enough to keep tabs on the healing and any complications. Over the years, I have had three test subjects, and I saw all of them at least weekly.

We as piercers have a certain responsibility to uphold basic standards of ethics and morals with our job. We wield a lot of influence and power with our clients, and it needs to be used in a positive way — for positive education and helping the growth of our industry, rather than taking the risks presented to us to potentially destroy it.

Sometimes, “no” isn’t such a bad thing.

* * *

Derek Lowe

I can’t wait to once again be labeled as “anti-modification” after I answer this question.
 
I choose not to do procedures (in my case, pretty much just piercings) on a semi-regular basis. While it is physically possible for me to pierce pretty much anything that walks through the door, that doesn’t always make it a good idea. There are a few reasons it might not be a good idea, but the most common one is simply the client’s anatomy.
 
The human body wasn’t created with piercing in mind, so not every person is well-suited to have every piercing. If I feel the piercing has a very small chance of working out, or I feel like it is going to cause “collateral damage,” I will opt to not do the piercing. One example would be someone who wants a surface piercing but has very little loose skin to work with. In that case the piercing is very likely going to reject and in most cases I’ll not do the piercing. Surface anchors are opening up some options in those situations, but even those aren’t the be-all end-all some people seem to think they are.
 
The most common situation in which I won’t do a piercing is if someone wants a tongue piercing but they have a very short tongue. With a very short tongue, the piercing is going to have to be done further towards the tip of the tongue. This is going to greatly increase the likelihood of the barbell doing damage to the gums and bone under the lower front teeth — collateral damage. Some piercers will opt to do the piercing at all sorts of angles to try and counter that issue, but those angles often don’t work and can lead to other issues. I feel it’s simply best at that point to not do the procedure.
 
Some will say that people have the right to do whatever they want to their body, as long as they understand the risk. That’s absolutely true…they do have that right. At the same time, I have the right to choose not to do the piercing. I am under no obligation to perform a procedure for someone if I think it is a bad idea.  As a piercer, my number one responsibility is to do safe piercings. While there are risks associated with every piercing, most of those risks can be mitigated almost to the point of non-existence. If they can’t be mitigated, that’s when I have to make a decision about whether it’s best to proceed or not.
 
 There are also the situations I think every piercer has to deal with: clients who are under the influence of who-knows-what, clients that seem to be mentally impaired, clients who are clearly being pressured into the piercing by a husband/wife/lover/friend etc. Those are often not pleasant situations to deal with, but handling stuff like that is part of what goes along with being a professional.

* * *

Stephen DeToma

I think if you are a piercer working today and you are not willing to refuse a piercing, there’s something wrong.

The biggest contributing factor to me refusing to do work on someone has to be anatomy. Fair, thin brows and ears not built to support a traditional industrial piercing are fairly common and make up the bulk of my refusals. Telling someone they cannot get the piercing they want can be touchy, but it’s not hard to steer someone who may be looking for a traditionally placed industrial towards something similar. I’ve often turned to other ear work, daiths being my favorite, as well as placing industrials in anatomy that will support it using different jewelry such as curved barbells. Sometimes it’s hard to explain to someone who comes in with a friend why they are unable to get a piercing their friend is currently wearing, even when it’s painfully obvious to us. The call of, “She got it, why can’t ?I” is a common one and a reminder that, in one sense, we are not all created equal.

I’ve also refused to do many different things that are either out of my range of experience or my personal comfort zone. I’ve been approached by friends over the years looking for tongue splits and transscrotals, the former of which I think I could undertake but my lack of any real practical experience prevents me; the latter is something so far out of my range I don’t even consider it.

I think artists get a rush out of creation, be it from painting or writing, and are constantly striving to reach a new level. I think it’s this sensation that drives body piercers to become body modification artists, that is, broadening their base of procedures that they perform. I think a lot of it is a genuine need to create; piercing can be limiting in its scope of application and a passionate artist will strive to touch on new ground, though there are a great many still who seem to want to make these modifications to earn their stripes, make their bones. It’s like a kid who has to commit a crime to prove he’s down with a gang; that may be a bad analogy but it’s the first that springs to mind.

And so, because of these feelings, I reassess my desire to be a piercer. There is a ceiling that one reaches when doing this work and when it is reached, I think it helps to focus you on your work. Maybe that’s what inspires some people to step away from it and move into heavier modifications. Maybe that was their plan all along — who knows? I won’t fault them for their choices. But when someone comes to me looking for a meatotomy for example, I can refuse easily knowing that there is a lot I still want to work on in the world of piercing alone. Though heavier stuff interests me a great deal, presently, it’s not for me.

When I turn someone down, I try to be as clear as I can with them as to why I am doing so. Being honest and sympathetic lends a great deal to making sure that the person understands why they won’t be getting pierced. Sometimes it doesn’t click until I tell them that I would love to charge them $50 for what they want, but I just don’t believe that would be right. Turning someone down sometimes means that they will simply walk right down the street to the first person who will do the piercing for them, but if you’ve been forewarned and decide to go through with it anyway, you can’t say you weren’t warned.

I try to get to know the person I’m piercing before we get down to work, so that if a girl comes in looking for a facial piercing days before she starts soccer camp — knowing full well that it won’t fly with the coach — I can suggest she wait until the end of the season.

As I write this, I just had a young lady come in looking for a septum piercing. She had been through 12 reconstructive surgeries around her nose and lips since she was a baby. I had her come in and sit down so I could look at her, already thinking that this wasn’t going to work. After a few moments feeling around, it was clear what was left of her septum wasn’t going to be suitable to be pierced. She was pleasant and said she had expected as much and we began discussing other piercing options.

Juxtapose that with one of the biggest disagreements I’ve had recently: A woman came in with her husband and daughter looking for a navel piercing. She had had breast augmentation less than 3 months ago and had gone through her navel. I was not comfortable with the state of the tissue or the length of time she had waited to do the piercing so I asked her to check back with me at 6 months to see if it had changed, warning her that it may be up to a year before the tissue was ready. The short version of the remainder is, she interrupted two separate conversations trying to explain that she was willing to take the risk and by the third I had to explain to her that there was no way I would be doing the piercing for her that day. She threatened to go up the road to another studio in town and have it done there; I wished her the best of luck.

Threatening to visit another studio when I refused, I explained, was like a teenager walking into a bar, demanding a beer, being refused, and threatening to go to another bar if he isn’t served. It’s senseless. If another studio would like to take the responsibility for the piercing, answer the questions that are surly to follow and deal with the inevitable headaches that the client would provide (judging by her interaction in the studio) I can sleep well at night knowing that I refused her.

What do you think? Let’s hear it in the comments.

* * *

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Mastectomy Memories

Monday, June 16th, 2008

Many, many thanks to Ely for sending in the story behind his double mastectomy..

Ely, before surgery in November 2005.

Read more…

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Self-Injury Scar Cover-Up Procedure

Friday, March 14th, 2008

self-harm-coverup-1.jpg

I posted quite recently about a self-injury to self-love transformation through scarification, and Ron Garza sent in this story about the customer pictured in this entry.

After filming for Discovery Channel in Canada last year, and working and speaking with the plastic surgeon on the show, I discussed ideas with him for scar cover-ups done the same way tattoo cover-up custom designs are done on a larger scale. He thought it was a great idea and suggested we consult with local surgeons in our area and see about going in after surgeries and making the surgery scar into a design, decided upon by the patient and myself before the whole surgery. I thought it was a great idea, and it only reinforced my idea that this was totally possible.

I started playing with it, doing a few small removals in different designs to cover surface piercing scars and that healed amazing. Well… then at the scar class that Gillstrap and myself taught Erik Dakota, Gillstrap and myself all collaborated and removed a huge brand that was deep on this student’s sternum. While it takes much more work to get even and consistent it showed me it can be done. Yes, it’s true — it is a complete pain in the ass but I have been pretty stoked on the results.

This piece was done as a reclamation of self-piece and a way of covering over the self-injurious past scars with a healthier new beginning. Originally a phoenix was requested but when we started drawing the design on, with all the old scars a koi just seemed to fit much better with the scales in the direction of her scars. I actually removed some of the old scars to get things level and tried to create a level scar in a field of uneven scar tissue. As you see in the drawing, some scales were also going to be removal for a spotted koi look, but some of the scars’ roots were just to deep to do all at once, so we got the outline done. I’m quite pleased with the results thus far. I’m sure when we add some grey wash to the piece it will give the entire piece more depth and really take the emphasis off the old scars.

Next week we begin the other arm — I’m stoked!

self-harm-coverup-2.jpg

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Impgrin: Inflated! (BME/News Publisher's Ring)

Monday, February 4th, 2008

Impgrim: Inflated!

I first met my friend “Impgrin” when he sent me photos of his mineral oil injection which had, as they always do, gone terribly wrong. In his early thirties, his interests centered around body inflation of all sorts — saline, air, water, pumping, and more — but he had catastrophically deformed genitals thanks to his body’s response to the mineral oil. After hiding it, untreated for half a decade, he met the woman who was to be his wife and eventually had to face the wages of his fetish with her.

Ultimately, his story is a love story, and with her support, he went through a difficult repair process and now enjoys his fetishes with borders that they can both enjoy without risk.

Impgrin’s deeply damaged genitals prior to surgery

* * *

Tell me a bit about yourself.

I was born and raised in the Montreal, Canada area and am a strictly heterosexual male, married, with no kids yet. I came from a normal family — you know, we ate dinner together every night — not super happy and close knit like the perfect families you see in the movies, but we were all pretty much normal and content. I was always more reserved and kept to myself growing up, with no girlfriends until I met my wife five years ago…

I breezed through high school and then did one semester of college. I didn’t really like the way the teaching structure was set up: “Ok, class, read pages 100 to 975, do the exercises on pages 976 through 980, and if you have any questions ask me later” — a quote from almost all my teachers… If I wanted to teach myself everything, I would have gone to the library. I dropped out and went to work and had several jobs over the years until I found I had a talent and passion for computers. Now I work in the IT industry in a corporate environment.

What body modifications have you undergone?

The only permanent “mods” I have are one nipple ring in my right nip, and a huge asshole from regular stretching.

I had tried genital beading a short time after having read an article in Penthouse. I didn’t know how so I just cut slots in the skin and pushed the beads in and taped up the holes. After a couple days, the holes hadn’t healed and were starting to look bad, so I got scared and opened them up. I hadn’t used stainless steel so the beads were turning black… I popped them out, washed everything, and let it heal.

I now have skin graft scars on my entire penis and scrotum except for the knob. The graft was the result of that stupidness with mineral oil…

Why did you inject mineral oil into your genitals? It almost always turns out badly when people try that… I hope it wasn’t after you saw it on BME!

I decided to do this on my own but it happened in two steps. Once, before I had heard of BME, I wanted to do something to make my dick bigger a little more permanently. Thinking of the different things around the house, I came up with the bright idea of injecting mineral oil. The reasoning was “if we can drink it, I can inject it.” Thing is, I didn’t know at the time that mineral oil is used to help with constipation — the body can’t absorb it so it gets expelled…

The first time I only used a little — maybe a couple of CCs. It made a small bump on the top of my cock about an inch long by 3/4 inch wide and 1/4 inch high, roughly oval in shape. I got scared at that point and stopped. The lump sort of flattened, like a saline injection and stayed sort of soft for about a day, getting firmer and firmer. It stopped changing texture after a day or two and didn’t move in any way, shape, or form after that.

When I did the major injection I was twenty one or twenty two and it was several years after the first injection. I hadn’t had a girlfriend (or sex) yet and my dick was all lumpy. I was depressed and looking for a way out, either up or down — I don’t think I cared. I started obsessing about my dick and I can remember thinking that if I made it bigger and smoothed out the bumps, maybe I would get some confidence back and find myself a woman… Vacuum pumping was temporary, as was saline, and I came back to the oil… It had worked the first time, so I did it.

The same state came over me again where my hands were shaking, my heart was pounding, and I was not in control anymore… the little short circuit in my brain that pushes me do do all these things was more there than I was I think. I injected some oil into my cock and it looked good, so I injected more… I was hard as a rock and I could really see what it looked like — nice and fat and smooth. It looked normal, but really fat, like after a good pumping session. I was in a trance and just kept thinking how I wanted to be bigger and injected a whole lot more into my sac, at the base of my cock. It didn’t hurt at all — none of it. I don’t know if it was the euphoric state I was in, or if mineral oil just goes in that way. I massaged the oil around to make it even and by then was so primed up I had to jerk off. I had no other choice: I had to cum…

In all I think I injected 500cc into my sac and maybe 250cc more into my dick…

Over the next couple of days the euphoria wore off pretty quickly. I was sure I was going to die because of this. Not because it looked bad at first or anything — I just sort of had a premonition… Because of my state of mind at that point I just said “ok, shit happens” and let it go… The appearance deteriorated over the first week, sort of stopped for a while, and then constantly got worse and worse…

The problem is, my dick, like every other guy’s on the planet, isn’t erect 24 hours a day. Because I had filled it up while hard, my skin was stretched out over the length of my erect cock. When I go soft, I am about half the erect length, and the oil and stretched skin had to go somewhere… the best analogy I can think of would be grabbing your cock at the base and pulling the skin towards the knob. It sort of bunches up around the head, right? Imagine this now with 250cc of oil under the skin. The oil wanted to stay long and flat because it was hardening, but my soft cock was trying to pull back into my body like usual.

It took about a month but I finally wound up with a sort of doughnut shaped bulge of skin around the head of my soft cock. The bulge took up the whole length of my dick between the head and the base. It wasn’t lumpy, and it stayed smooth, but it was very firm and not pliable. It was permanent, and when I got hard, the skin didn’t change shape or stretch out. It pulled the skin from the base of my dick outwards. I was the same length hard as before, only half of my dick stayed inside. Think of my previous analogy — when you pull the skin of your dick towards the head, the pad at the base sort of pulls up along your cock, right? Same thing was happening to me. All the time. The skin that had been injected didn’t move, didn’t slide, or bend — it was just stuck to the outer half of my dick. Because the skin didn’t move this caused two complications.

First, because I had also injected into my sac, the joint between dick and sac was no longer very flexible. Erections at night and from masturbation pulled out my dick, but the skin under there couldn’t handle it and eventually split. The split grew wider and deeper until I was scared it would cut into my urethra. It never healed over and no matter how often I washed it, it was constantly seeping puss or lymph… the split never cut into the urethra but it wound up covering a third of the diameter of my dick.

The second complication was caused by the same problem — getting hard was pulling on tissue that had no give but was aggravated by being soft too. The skin just below head of my dick and where the shaft attached started to split as well. The head of my cock was slowly being pulled under the skin, but there was no give there either. The skin split on top of my dick too, just below where the glans ends. This pocket went about half way around and was about 3/4 inch deep, and because it was very hard to keep clean, puss and lymph would build up under there. The pocket broke through eventually and made a second hole in the surface skin. That hole slowly tore out along the whitish scarred lump until it totally separated on that side.

All this took about five years to evolve. It wasn’t painful, but it was gross. I had to put folded up paper towels in my underwear to keep the oozing under control, and it always stank.

What did you tell the doctors when you eventually decided to have it treated?

What did I tell them? The truth. I wanted them to fix it and I wanted everything to work so I had to give the docs all the info they needed to do the job right. I actually had several doctors… In Montreal there are mostly teaching hospitals so I saw just about every intern there — they don’t see stuff like this every day I guess! My actual doctors though consisted of three of the senior urologists and the senior plastic surgeon.

They started by removing most of the mass from my sac as much as they could. I had an epidural and sedative for this part and I actually started to wake up during the operation. All of a sudden I could feel them pulling on my genitals. It was scary for a few seconds until someone gave me another shot of sedative and I fell asleep again. This took a while to heal, and there was a complication because the drains were taken out too early so I had a build up of blood in my sac. They had sent me home to rest and I would go in a couple times a week for follow up. The blood clot finally forced open the sutures, so when I went back in they had to rinse out the holes to break up the clot. I was told to massage out as much of the clot as I could every day in the shower after irrigating the hole with saline from a big syringe. The first time, about 125ml of clotted blood came out. I was resigned to all this so it didn’t affect me too much… well, when the sutures split I freaked out a bit, but afterwards I was sort of detached — clinical about it all.

My wife didn’t look too much because she’s squeamish, but she was always there to support me. Luckily, I had continued doing inflation play after injecting the oil which had stretched the tissue, so there was enough healthy skin to leave me a good sized sac. The scrotal results were encouraging, and it was time to remove the rest of the mass from my dick. The doctors had no idea if I would still be able to function afterwards — at this point I could still get hard and ejaculate — so the wife and I went to a fertility clinic to set up a sperm bank. We found out that I was producing no live sperm… no sperm at all in fact. There just seemed to be some immature sperm but nothing else. That hurt. I wasn’t really sure if I wanted kids but to have the option taken away like that hurt both of us…

The penis operation was sort of like a breast lift. They cut a vertical incision in the skin above my cock to where the base was supposed to be and pulled the shaft back up to that point. They stitched the skin together around the base to close it up. Then they removed all the injected skin on my shaft, which is to say, all of it. There was no original skin left on it at all, so they took a slice of skin from my belly in the crease where your pants button up for the graft — a free tummy tuck. The plastic surgeon had never done anything like this before so this was her best guess. She wrapped the strip around the shaft from the base towards the tip and stapled the sides of the strip together to form a sort of tube. They put it in a cast and sutured the knob to my belly button. The cast was to keep the graft in place, and it was stitched to my navel to keep it stretched out.

I was in the hospital for two weeks I think, but I can’t really remember because I was on morphine. The pain was excruciating. I would get erections at night, and at first I was happy it still worked, but getting hard in the cast pulled at the graft. I can remember waking up writhing in pain from my hard on, and hitting the plunger for more morphine from the automatic drip. I would fall asleep only to wake up later writhing again… I asked for something to keep me from getting hard, but they said that kind of medicine restricts blood flow and wouldn’t be good for the graft. It was a week before I could get by without the morphine, and a week after that they sent me home.

I complained to the nurse that the cast smelled funny before leaving and she told me that it was because I couldn’t wash properly, but the next day I was delirious and running a fever. My wife rushed me back to the hospital where they took lots of blood for tests, and discovered I had a systemic infection. About an hour later the plastic surgeon showed up and took off the cast. She started grumbling under her breath and started to remove bits of skin and staples. The skin was brown and looked like leather. When she was done she said something like “it’s all messed up” and stormed off.

I was scared shitless. I thought my dick was going to fall off! Turns out that 80% of the graft had failed — only a fifth of it was still alive. Apparently they had me under observation in the urology wing, but the nurses didn’t recognize the signs of the graft failing. They kept me for another week to cure the infection, cleaned up my dick, and sent me to the local clinic for daily follow ups. The failed skin had to scar completely and the grafted skin needed a chance to heal. I had to take baths every night in water and use bleach to clean it.

When it was finally healed enough to try again the plastic surgeon used another technique. She took a patch of skin off of my thigh, a rectangle about 4 inches by 6 inches which was only the surface layers of skin though, unlike the first strip which had the complete epidermis. A sort of waxed gauze was used as a bandage that gave support, but was not too rigid. This graft worked much better with about 80% surviving this time, and then back to the baths and cleaning, until the grafted skin spread to fill in the gaps. In all it took about four months.

All this time I had a catheter through my belly, directly into my bladder to urinate. Even that caused problems. Because I was being seen by a plastic surgeon and not a urologist, they forgot to have the catheter changed. After four months, mineral deposits had formed on the tube in my bladder and the doctor couldn’t get it out. This caused more complications, pain, and worry… The funny thing about all this is that I am a hairy guy. Why is that funny? The first graft came from my belly, and since it was the whole thickness of skin it included the hair follicles — I now have a couple of spots on my dick that I have to pluck once in a while. If I don’t, my wife complains they tickle her throat!

After the initial healing was done, we were super happy. I could still get hard, and could still ejaculate and orgasm. My dick was short though — skin grafts shrink while they heal, so I only had about half my original length. But, at least that half could be used for what it should be — SEX!

A friend of mine who had similar graft work after cancer almost totally lost sensation in the shaft. Did you lose much sensation?

I lost a lot, but not all of it — maybe 60%. I am really happy that none of the oil made it into my knob! I strongly suggest pumping for your friend. It engorges the skin with blood, and the swelling helps the tissue expand.

I guess if the oil had gotten into the glans, you’d probably have lost it, and if you’d gone deeper, into the cavernosum, you’d need an implant to get hard?

Yup, that’s what the docs told me, but the implant wouldn’t work. No glans, no skin, and no cavernosum — nothing to put an implant in! It would have come off… ugh… I get chills just thinking about it…

How was the healing?

I had trouble sleeping… The catheter and bag meant that my bladder hadn’t been used to hold piss for four months, and it shrunk. Also, because the skin grafts were tight and inflexible, being basically scars, erections at night were painful if they lasted too long. I’d have to get up to piss every hour or two, making for short nights… When I finally got back to work, bus rides turned into my worst nightmare. Almost every day I would get on the bus only to have to take a piss five minutes later and by the time I got to town, the pain from holding it in was terrible. After a while though things got back to normal.

I started pumping both my cock and balls again, and have done some inflation. The pumping actually had an added benefit too. Pumping my cock actually helped stretch out the grafted skin! When I get hard, I actually have almost all of my original length and the skin is much more supple. I also went back to the fertility clinic for more tests and found out that I am now producing 40% live sperm, 90% of which are “fast”, which means that I could reproduce naturally without too much difficulty!

That’s excellent news. Do you mind telling me about the first time you had sex after your penis was fixed? What was it like?

The first time we tried, not long after the operation, sort of flopped. We were both too nervous… but the second time, we both came — it was a very special moment for us. We had loved each other for a long time and had not been able to have sex… sure, we did other things but it was not the same.

All in all it turned out very well. The graft is more supple but doesn’t slide up and down like normal dick skin, and I think this is a good thing… for my wife. She really likes how it feels. I’m sort of like a real, living, textured dildo!

Think you’ll every try a permanent expansion again, this time with something a bit safer like silicone?

No — I will never do anything like that again. Pumping is the only thing I do to it now. I think the fact that I’m with my wife, coupled with all the pain I had to endure have knocked back that uncontrollable urge, so I won’t get carried away… in any case, my wife likes it the way it is!

* * *

You’ve mentioned pumping and inflation — let’s talk about your play activities.

In my case, “play” has always been private and sexual in nature. Everything I ever did to myself was either to make something bigger, or to get off. Simple as that. These things turn me on in one way or another. Don’t ask me why though because I couldn’t tell you — the only guess I can come up with is that it is genetic.

Part of me actually thinks it’s quite normal, and that most people just keep it repressed.

Normal? I don’t think so. Some people may keep these urges repressed and that’s not good, but I tend to think that there is no “norm”. Everybody’s brain is wired differently — simple as that. That’s why we have violent people and passive ones, leaders and followers, mathematicians and poets and race car drivers. It’s rare that one person is really good in more than one situation. I think the same goes for our appetites and urges as well…

So you literally think it’s genetic I guess —

My first cock pump was stolen out of my dad’s drawer — washed before use of course — and he had some other stuff in there too… we are of German descent on his side, and if you think about it, where does most of the hardcore kink on the net or on video come from? Deutschland. 1+1=2, I guess…

I don’t suppose it’s something you really talk to your parents to, but do you know the extent to which he was into these things? I wonder…

No, we didn’t really talk about it but he had needles and elastic bands and tubes, and a dildo too… he knew that something was up. When he gave the “sexuality speech” to my sister and I, he told us about the time he put a hatpin in his dick when he was in puberty and it got stuck. He had to go to the hospital to get it removed. The point of the story was to get us to ask questions instead of doing something stupid… I wasn’t much of a talker I guess…

So how did it all start for you?

The first “weird” thing I can remember doing goes back to just after I hit puberty. I had taken a latex rubber glove from the first aid kit and blown it up in my pants. The sight of my “balls” blowing up, slowly getting bigger and bigger was a real turn on for me. The pressure of the inflated glove pressing on my cock and balls was also really nice.

Around the same time I had seen one of the James Bond movies where Bond kills the bad guy at the end by putting a compressed air pellet in his mouth. The villain blew up like a balloon, floated up to the ceiling where a spike burst him. I don’t remember which episode it was and I’m not sure if I saw the movie before or after the glove but these two things are what kicked off my obsession with erotic play in the inflation-expansion-stretching fetish domain.

Over the years I have “played” by sticking things up my ass, always deeper and bigger, always trying to get in a little bit more — I love being fisted by my wife! I also love things in my mouth… the dildos I used up my ass also went down my throat, after being cleaned. Never real cock though — as strange as it may seem, I have absolutely no homosexual tendencies, repressed or otherwise… I have inserted condoms and balloons into all my different orifices and blown them up. I have pumped my cock and balls. I’ve done saline and air inflation of my cock, balls, and breasts. Deep sounding. Multiple piercings of my nipples, cock, and balls. At one point I even bought several six foot diameter balloons — the same ones you can actually get inside. My current play favorite is body inflation. Using either air or water, I slowly fill myself up until my belly is completely distended.

I’ve never tried that — what does that feel like? It’s basically like an enema but with a lot more volume?

That’s it exactly, a high volume enema with air or water. This one definitely isn’t for everyone… if your intestines can’t take it, you can’t do it even if you want to! This goes back to my main fetish of inflation, getting bigger, and swelling. It’s also the physical sensation that goes along with it — sort of a double whammy… Think of it this way: you have a thirty foot long balloon in your gut called intestines, and the more you fill them up, the bigger you get!

Is it different depending on whether you use air or water?

The process and feeling are unique to each. With air you just stick in a hose and start pumping until you’re full. You have to go slow for a couple reasons though — to allow your intestines to relax and expand (otherwise you get cramps), and if there is a plug of shit in there somewhere it gives time for the air to seep around it… And you go slow to avoid too much pressure — if you burst your intestine you’re probably going to die from it. Also, from my experiments with inflation in other body parts, air can infuse tissues which is probably not a great idea.

Water is different in that it makes a big mess… I usually do it lying down in the tub. Again, low pressure is the key to getting big, but because water is denser than air it won’t seep around any plugs. This means you have to fill up some, let out the water — and anything else — and start again, and usually you get more in every time. I think it is also safer because it won’t permeate the tissues like air does. It won’t compress though, and it also tends to come out right away since it’s harder to hold in.

In both cases the best position for filling is on your back in an almost seated position. Lying flat stretches out the stomach too much and you don’t bulge as much.

And what does it feel like?

The sensation is incredible… you can feel both air or water slowly seeping deeper into you, filling you up, pressing on your bladder, stomach, belly, and diaphragm… slowly pressing your belly outwards, getting tighter and tighter — I have actually had to take shallow breaths because of the pressure. The sight of your belly blowing up combined with the tight, blown up feeling is a real trip! With air it is lighter and gives a rounder, more pronounced belly. Tapping on it when you’re really full sounds almost like a balloon — hollow… Water feels much heavier, and when you’re full, you’re full… because of the weight it tends to spread you out more width-wise than in height. You’re not going to look nine months pregnant — more like you’re pushing out your gut as far as you can. Obviously the more you do it, the bigger you’ll get too. At first it can be a little disappointing because you can’t hold too much. You really have to be able to relax and let it flow.

Getting the air or water out again is also different. When I use water, it all comes out in a few minutes. The whole process, including several inflations, can take an hour or so combined. Air on the other hand takes a lot longer. Since you can’t really move around when you’re full, you had better pick a good spot. The best thing to do is roll over on your left side and just fart until it all gets out. It usually takes me twenty minutes to get the air down to a “normal feeling” pressure, but it can take hours to get it all out. I guess air is better if you want to have sex or masturbate while filled because you keep it in more easily and can do it pretty much anywhere. Water is good for solo sessions.

* * *

After all the problems you’ve had, what do you think keeps you going?

Sometimes I just really get the urge to blow myself up… A raging need to inflate, stretch, or pierce something and get off by doing it. I have toned down my activity now that I’m married, but it always comes back to getting bigger and getting off. My wife isn’t really into this stuff but she tolerates it, and even participates sometimes when I get the urge!

That’s good — I know a few guys who’ve actually gotten divorced because their wives weren’t able to understand their needs in this area.

She doesn’t really like most of the things I do but won’t put her foot down if I feel like scratching an urge, even if she doesn’t understand why… She doesn’t stifle me at all, but having her in my life and knowing that she doesn’t want me to get hurt keeps me grounded and within safe limits… before I met her I was obsessive about my fetish. It was compulsive and dangerous I wound up in the hospital a couple of times…

In any case we love each other enough to be able to let these things slide…

I think it’s quite normal for guys’ masturbatory play to amplify when their partners aren’t around or they don’t have them. I know that’s the case for most of the people I’ve interviewed!

I hear you — If I wasn’t married and I didn’t have to go to work every day I would probably need a football to plug my ass and have a beach ball sized nut sack! I actually still fantasize about that, even after all I’ve been through… injecting saline, or inflating day after day until my scrotum is several feet in diameter… and doing my gut until I’m huge is another fantasy. My biggest fantasy though would be to blow up my wife. Nothing permanent — this is a fantasy — but blowing her tits and belly up like balloons while fucking her… mmmmmmmmm…

My wife is actually a little modded herself… she had breast implants done last year, so she has a little bit of an idea of what’s going on.

Her breast implants were for her own reasons I assume?

I brought up the idea but she had always said she wanted to be bigger — it was 100% for both of us. She actually wants to go bigger now… again for both of us, but this time she was the one who suggested it. Now that I think if it, she really got hot for the idea after I blew up a couple of balloons in her bra under her clothes. We had sex like that and the sight of herself in the mirror with those big tits turned her on.

* * *

When you were young, after doing the inflations in your underwear, what did you try next?

The next thing I can remember is sounding. I would take a 1/4 inch tube and stick it in all my holes. At first I would push it up my cock, using a little spit for lube and working it up. Feeling it go in deeper and deeper was a real turn on. The more I would do it, the further I would go too… all the way into my bladder! A couple of times I would blow air or water into myself this way, filling up my bladder to its limit. It felt really weird, seeing the air bubbles coming out of my dick while expelling the air.

What does it feel like? Is it just like having to pee or is there more to it? Is it a head trip or a physical sensation?

It’s not quite the same as having to pee — I never had to pee that bad! It sort of burns a bit too, but it’s not a super experience physically so I would have to say it’s more of a head trip related to the inflation fetish… It’s probably dangerous too — I don’t think kidneys would react to well having air forced into them.

And you actually did inflations in your urethra as well?

At first I wanted see how much I could blow up a condom in my cock. The pressure would build and I could feel the condom stretching inside my urethra bit by bit… after a couple of tries I could see my cock expanding a little from the pressure. The cool thing about condoms is that they are clean — if not sterile — and very smooth and very stretchy, and also start stretching with little force. A condom blows up easily while you really have to strain to get a balloon going. This means that once the condom is blocked off by the walls of a body cavity, it won’t exert much pressure on anything before stretching off wherever it has room. Being so stretchy and smooth, it can expand like this quite some way. You just have to be careful because they burst more easily.

Once or twice I actually pushed the condom all the way into my bladder. Once the end of the condom was in my bladder — trust me you can feel it — I would blow into it gently. I could feel the condom expanding, stretching out my bladder, until I felt like I had to piss. I could also feel it stretching out the opening of my urethra. While I was doing this I would be so turned on — heart pounding, light-headed, and euphoric. I would only see the excitement of it… after another intense orgasm, the blood in my cum brought me down to earth fast, blood from my urethra being stretched out and torn. Pissing really burned afterwards too, but I have always seemed to heal quickly though and this discomfort only seemed to last a few days. Because of the risk of a condom bursting inside me, I started inflating condoms and balloons in my ass instead.

But you started the ass inflation games with earlier dildo play?

All of these fetishes sort of developed along with each other, and as each one got more and more extreme I would incorporate the others in and develop them as well… I first tried anal insertion using the tube in the shower to blow some air up my ass. I had done an enema so I felt clean enough to start playing up there with my fingers — slowly I would try to get more fingers in. It was a bit painful but it didn’t hurt — it felt good! I wanted to see how deep I could go, and what it would feel like, so I grabbed what I could — the toilet brush! I was still young at this point, and didn’t have any money, and not much sense. It went in fairly easily and I worked it in deeper and deeper. I could feel it hit my intestine where it turns over to the side — a weird sensation, but in a good way. I said “what the fuck” and sort of twisted it to the side so I could get in deeper. I manged to push it in the rest of the way — about fourteen inches of plastic handle was up my ass! You can guess how I felt now, so I masturbated there in the shower with the toilet brush handle up my ass. From then on my parents started calling me “Mister Clean” because I was always in the shower!

As time went on I started working, and I bought several dildos in different sizes, from an average sized dick up to a big chunk of hand molded rubber roughly square, 3×4 inches in size… and even that wasn’t big enough…

I always started with a nice long enema to get myself cleaned out — shit is not one of my turn-ons! I would go lie down in bed and stretch myself out. At first the stretching consisted of putting the dildo and as many fingers as I could up my ass, and later it would be two dildos and fingers, then three… Eventually I was able to fist myself and I have big hands! I bought a Long John Silver dildo — about a foot and a half long and three inches thick — and would ride it for hours. I even used my handyman techniques on it — I had cut out a hole in the dildo near my anus and put in a dissected vibrator, sealed the hole up with melted rubber, and went along for the ride. After a while I wanted even more so I went out and bought “the chunk”… the sensation was amazing, being totally stretched out. I would bring myself to “anal orgasm”, and my intestine would spasm pushing out the dildo — it was like cumming but ten times stronger. Even this wasn’t enough though.

At this point I started experimenting with bigger inflations in my ass. I would inflate condoms as big as I could get them, and I used those cylindrical balloons as well. Not the small ones clowns use to make animals, but the bigger ones. I was blowing them up just to the point where it started to hurt, each time filling up more and more. Feeling the balloon push deeper into my belly, I would masturbate that way with the balloon filling me up. The spasming of ejaculation uses some of the same muscles as clenching your ass so the feeling of being stretched and trying to clench while cumming was mind blowing.

When I finished I would push out the balloon to see how big I had gone that day — by now my ass was huge, but for part of me, it wasn’t enough. I wanted to stretch myself out more… Ingenuity to the rescue again! I melted down the Long Dong Silver dildo on the kitchen stove. At night while my parents were sleeping I had made a plaster mold of a Pepsi Super Gulp bottle and filled it with the melted rubber. Long John wasn’t enough, so I melted down another dildo the next night and I wound up with a big bullet shaped hunk of rubber. I was hard as a rock and dripping with the thought of forcing this thing up my ass — “force” being the operative word! After the standard enema and a little warm-up I tried… and tried. It wouldn’t go all the way in to its biggest point. Did I stop? No, I grabbed a chair, put the dildo on it and sat down. I used my weight to force it in slowly. In a bit, out a bit, in a little more… god, that thing was huge! It took me several tries on different days but I finally got it in. I came so hard I almost passed out! That thing was taking all the free space down there and making more, pressing on my prostate and everything else. I kept at it until I was able to use it like a normal dildo, pushing it in by hand.

I still wanted more, so I made another mold. This one was a vase that was about the same size as the Super Gulp but I used some “lifelike dildos” made of softer rubber… softer because I wanted this one this one to be inflatable. Same process — mold, melted rubber, but I put a thick, three foot balloon inside which was about 8 inches and flat when deflated. I hooked it up to a bicycle pump and really stretched my ass out! This one looked a bit like a giant butt plug — pointy, bigger in the middle, and narrower at the base… the balloon was right at the biggest point which was also about as deep as I could get it inside me. I would start with the chunk, then switch to the plug, again forcing it in with my weight, and then I would start pumping. It was painful but the sensation of stretching out and building up the pressure was intense — I can’t really describe it… just orgasmicly intense! I could feel the plug actually pushing on my pelvic bones… it was amazing being stretched this much!

This became an obsession — I always wanted to get bigger and bigger…

And you were doing vacuum pumping and inflating as well?

Yes, standard stuff. I couldn’t make any permanent growth, but I would get really fat, filling up the tube. I always used my mouth do create the suction so I could go harder than with a hand bulb. I used to blister myself all the time but I wouldn’t stop — the pressure was too exciting. I would burst the blisters as they would appear to keep them from getting bigger and keep pumping… Once I had more blisters on the end of my cock than skin. I couldn’t even masturbate afterwards, it was so sore. I am not a masochist though… pain doesn’t turn me on, nor does inflicting pain. It’s just that sometimes I can turn the pain from some areas of my body off, or change it into pleasure when I’m in the right frame of mind. Nipples, cock, and nut sack — that’s it. Anything else doesn’t do it for me…

After pumping my cock I tried to pump my balls but couldn’t really do it well with a standard pump. This is before I started working, so I didn’t have money to buy anything bigger… I tried to make some pumps out of stuff around the house but I couldn’t get anything to work. That’s when I said to myself, what if I blew my nut sack up like a balloon? It’s “empty” like a balloon and stretchy, and pumping takes a long time anyways — so why not? How to do it though? I got out one of my hoses and a needle I used to blow up footballs, and a stainless steel nail. I cleaned everything with alcohol, put the needle on the end of the hose, punched a hole in my sac with the nail, and pushed the needle in.

Ouch?

It doesn’t really hurt to tell the truth. Sort of a prick and pop, and it goes in. I usually poke around for an area that is less sensitive — in general I don’t feel pain like most people do either… I remember in school we did an experiment where the teacher stamped a small grid of twenty-five squares onto our arms. We then used a needle to poke our skin to see how many squares we felt pain in. Most people felt pain in about 80% of the squares. I only actually felt pain in about a tenth.

Anyway, so you’re sitting there with a needle in your nut sack and a football pump.

My hands were shaking I was so wound up, and I can remember thinking “this is probably not a good idea”… but that other part of my brain that seems to take over when I get an “urge” said, “fuck it, blow” and I did.

The sensation was really different. First, because the needle had a relatively large diameter I was able to inflate much quicker than with, say, a syringe. I could feel the air spreading out under my skin while my sac expanded. It sort of tickled. My sac didn’t blow up like a balloon like I thought it would either — I could see the air spreading out under the skin, raising up the surface like Bugs Bunny digging a tunnel. When the air had raised the surface of my sac evenly I really started to swell. The first time I got to about the size of a big orange. I could feel the air pushing into the cavities where my balls dropped down from as a baby… I was hard as a rock and ready to cum. Then I started to feel the air pushing into the pad of skin around the base of my cock, under my pubes, and I came back down to earth. I hadn’t tied anything off so the air was spreading up into the skin of my belly.

Still excited, I pulled out the needle and watched as I deflated… a little. Then it stopped. Now I was a little worried. I had thought the air would all come back out… not! I pressed on my balls, squeezed them to force more air out, and that worked. I inflated again, this time using a bit of string to tie off my sac. Because I was tied off I could go bigger and use more pressure… I was shaking in the grip of a kind of euphoric madness I guess, and I couldn’t stop inflating and deflating myself. At the biggest, I could see the color of the skin changing to a sort of yellowy orange as air bubbles spread between the different layers of skin. I was the size of a big grapefruit and the skin was so full it was shiny. I jerked off to one of the most powerful ejaculations in my life. Then I came back to myself a little and started pushing out as much air as I could.

I only managed to get out about half — the air had permeated my skin and wasn’t coming out the hole! I was a little worried, but my logic was “if they can operate on people and let air in I’ll be alright.” But later that evening I got the shakes and felt sick. As if I had a fever, but I didn’t… after two days the feeling went away but my sac was still huge.

That’s really frightening — have you ever dragged an infection into your scrotum from air or saline play? I know a couple guys that have come very close to death because of how quickly these types of infections can escalate.

I wound up in the hospital twice with an infection. The first time was really bad. I had tried using water to inflate and was poorly prepared, and when the water didn’t work, I used air. The swelling went down, and then came back, red and hot. I wasn’t feeling very good by then and in the shower one morning about a week later I was massaging my balls when the original hole opened up and some purple yellow puss spewed out. That scared the shit out of me and I got my parents to take me to the hospital.

You’re lucky you didn’t die! Seriously!

I had a general infection at that point and could have died had I let it go any longer. I told my parents that I had fallen on the back of a chair while changing a light bulb. This had caused the swelling and a shaving cut on my nuts caused the infection — I told them that I was too shy to tell them about the swelling. The second time I recognized the symptoms sooner and took myself to the hospital…

On that second air inflation, how long did it take the air to eventually dissipate?

Three weeks of wearing loose clothes and tight underwear — loose clothes to hide what I’d done, and tight underwear to press the air into my system a fast as possible. From what I could find out, the sick feeling I experienced was a form of shock. Of course, my logic at this point said, “I lived, I am healthy and healed, so I can do this again!”

I did, many times… too often to count. The sick feeling got less and less every time I did it, but was always enough to make me feel weird for a few days. The biggest I ever got was about the size of a cantaloupe. I have also inflated my cock using a syringe needle — like vacum pumping but instantaneous. I even used so much pressure — with a bicycle pump — that the air was forced under the skin of my knob a couple of times. It was completely inflated, so light tapping on it made a hollow sound like a balloon that’s about to pop. Feeling the skin of your cock being filled to the limit like that is intense! The yellowing was definitely air bubbles, and the sensation was twice as strong in the knob because of its sponge-like nature. I jerked off my now-fat cock and came hard as usual, but it itched like crazy afterwards, especially the knob.

I know there’s no truth to the “if you get air in your bloodstream you’ll die of an embolism” warning, but did you ever worry that you weren’t just going to have a problem afterwards, but actually drop dead on the spot?

I was in the hospital once and the nurse was giving me an IV and there was a tiny bubble in the line. I asked her if it was dangerous and she said no. Air in your bloodstream can kill you, but you need to inject it directly into an artery going to the heart, and you need enough of a bubble to cause cavitation in the heart’s ventricles — it’s impossible to do this inflating your sac. I also came across a procedure or two on the net where doctors inject air into body cavities to perform endoscopic surgeries, and saw a news article where a woman working in a balloon shop fell on the compressed air canister, punctured her skin, and inflated her ass and one leg! Apparently she felt the same shock reaction I mentioned.

I guess it was that shock sensation that made you try out saline instead?

Yes — by now I had an Internet connection so I did a little research and found BME! Wow, there are others like me? Cool! I found the saline section — Eureka! There were no side-effects mentioned, and it was able to be absorbed quickly by the body naturally. What could be better? The only problem was that I was still at home, couldn’t order it, and in any case, was leery of ordering stuff off the Internet and injecting it into my body… I went to the drugstore to see what I could find. All they had was saline for contact lenses… I figured if I could put it in my eyes I should be able to inject it, right?

I built a drip bag by cleaning out a 2 liter plastic bottle and putting a hole in the bottom. I forced a length of vinyl tubing into the hole and sealed it off on the outside using hot glue. I flushed it out with alcohol, filled it, and started… Nothing happened. The needles I had were all very small and needed pressure to get the liquid through in enough quantities to make a visible difference, so I cut the nozzle off of a bicycle inner tube, leaving a circle of rubber around the base. I drilled a hole in the bottle cap the size of the nozzle, put the nozzle through the hole and screwed the cap on the bottle. The cap pressed the rubber circle enough to create a seal so I was in business. I hooked in the bicycle pump and started building up pressure slowly. I could feel the saline infusing the tissue but it was too slow. I couldn’t see it happening so I increased the pressure. I could now see the saline going down in the bottle and see my sac filling up. It was way different than the air. Air is not at all painful — it sort of tickles going in — but this was more invasive, more like it was forcing its way in and it hurt — real pain, not a “feel good” pain… But I wanted to see myself bigger, so I kept at it.

That day I made it to 500ml. My sack felt really full and heavy when I stood up, and it pulled at my abdominal flesh and muscles. The heavy feeling was extremely erotic, but then it started to ache… and spasm. I don’t know if this was caused by the type of saline I used, the speed I infused at, or if it is normal but fuck it hurt!

It was probably the type of saline… You also get a lot of pain if you use water rather than saline.

I laid down on my side cradling my sac for what seemed like a couple of hours until the pain subsided. It went completely away, leaving me with a huge heavy sac full of saline. I started playing with it, fondling, feeling the weight, swinging it between my legs. This actually forced the saline a little lower into my sac and made it look more natural. Again, I was completely aroused… I guess by now I don’t need to explain what happened next!

I tried this several times, again going bigger and bigger. The druggist where I bought my saline started to look at me funny I was buying so much. The biggest volume I ever reached using saline was over a liter and a half… My sac was completely stretched out… shiny and transparent looking. When the pain subsided and I could enjoy the experience I was ecstatic. I was huge and heavy — really heavy! The skin of my sac was super sensitive and it was stretched out so much. It was actually pulling the abdominal skin above my cock down over it. I couldn’t even walk straight I was so big… I noticed that the weight of so much saline was forcing its way down, stretching my already filled-to-the-limit skin even more. What looked like stretch marks formed under my sac, red lines racing across the underside… I didn’t care though, I was huge!

After a shower, I dried off and waddled back to my room. I took off my bathrobe — the only way to dress if you want to hide something like this by the way — and I noticed some moisture between my legs. The weight of the saline was actually forcing it to seep out through my skin! I lay down to take off some of the weight and I played with myself for hours that day while my body reabsorbed the saline. It was an unforgettable experience. I stopped using saline after that though — it hurt too much to be worth it. I tried using hot water to pump several times and got so-so results, but it took too long to get to a good size. Part of the trip is seeing myself grow, not just the results of eight hours of pumping.

* * *

You mentioned earlier that you did some permanent piercing as well?

I have made pincushions out of my knob and nipples — always for the same reason: bigger, bigger, more, more, more! I had read stories about how piercings in erogenous zones increase sensitivity and I said, this is for me. I sharpened a bicycle spoke with a file and polished it until it could cut paper — if you haven’t guessed by now, one of my jobs back then was at a bicycle store. I numbed my nipple using ice and stuck the needle in, and realized that nipples are really tough! I had to re-freeze my nipple three times before I got all the way through. I then put in a ring, bought at a piercing shop, and discovered why people use tapers to get the jewelry in. This was a learning experience though, and the pain of the piercing wore off in a couple minutes, leaving me with a swollen, hyper-sensitive nipple. Being sensitive anyways, it was really exciting. The feel of it, all tight and pulsing was somehow very erotic for me. In the weeks that followed, I moved on to my other nipple, then a frenum piercing.

I went back to the shop and bought a couple heavier gauge rings, wondering how I was going to get them in. I used my trusty bicycle spokes to make homemade stretcher rings. Each time I stretched it was just as sensitive as the first piercing… each time I was so aroused I had to jerk off. Eventually the skin under my knob couldn’t take it any more and split, leaving two little stumps. I wanted to do my cock again so I pierced myself a Prince Albert and stretched it out one ring at a time, up to 2 gauge. It felt great! Feeling the weight hanging off my cock, pulling at it all the time was another unique, intense sensation in among a multitude of unique, intense sensations! I could force my little finger through the hole to the first knuckle. In the meantime this had inspired to do more piercings… My left nipple got the same treatment as the PA, although I stopped at an 8 gauge. My right nipple had four homemade studs through it, one horizontal, one vertical, and two others making an ‘X’ behind them. My knob also got more metal, eventually working up to several ampallangs. I couldn’t wait to heal them… I had to jerk off… the feel of the metal rings and balls in my hand, and the sensation of them pulling at the holes was so intense… I should have waited to heal though, as I wound up in the hospital with another general infection! All the piercings came out after that, but I recently redid my nipples.

* * *

You said your wife fists you and that she’s generally supportive of you, but how did you first tell her about your fetishes?

Well, she doesn’t really like what I do, but sometimes I get her to participate. The fisting for example — she didn’t want anything to do with it at first, but I convinced her to try… she wound up liking it. She likes the fact that she can bring me to such intense orgasms, and actually, the most intense orgasms I have had were from her fisting me. Usually she is in complete control too. When she’s halfway to her elbow up my ass she can make me cum or not — it’s up to her. If she doesn’t stop when I tell her to, I just keep cumming… it’s very intense. She has even said she’s a bit jealous that she can’t cum like that.

When I met her I was badly scarred from the injections — I hadn’t sought out treatment for the mineral oil until after I met my wife. We met, fell in love, and when we were in bed for the first time I didn’t have any choice but to tell her. I choked up and had trouble saying anything… I was scared she’d dump me… remember, this was my first and only relationship.

Wow, that must have been incredibly terrifying…

Tell me about it! That’s the thing with my wife though. I was totally at ease talking to her as opposed to being totally clammed up… this was tough but it was do or die.

I had manged to keep it hidden from her up to that point and put her hand on it through my shorts. She asked to see it and I showed her. She was freaked out, but nowhere near as much as she could have been. She was coming out of a bad relationship so it turned out to be a mutual healing process for both of us — literally in my case. I helped her get her mind out of the past and she helped me get treatment.


Shannon Larratt
BMEzine.com

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Rx Tattoo

Monday, October 8th, 2007

From Joy:

I was recently approached by Dr. Racanelli, a surgeon in NYC. He inquired whether I would be interested in tattooing the areola and nipple areas of his patients that have gone through breast reconstruction after mastectomies. During some surgeries, areolae and nipples are removed. Although reconstructions can create a “breast” using the surrounding tissue and implants, they cannot recreate the color of the areolae and nipple.

I told Dr. Raccanelli that I would love to help and he could give out my information to any patient who was interested. I had my first corrective/reconstruction tattoo procedure yesterday. If any one is interested, please don’t hesitate to contact me. Below are before and after pictures.

Before - Tattooed Nipple Reconstruction

Read more…

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We’re baaaaack!

Monday, January 8th, 2007

Sorry for the downtime. I’m back for now with lots of stuff prepped, but I should warn that there will be a little downtime over the next week when we move ModBlog to a dedicated server, and I’ve got a bunch of surgeries over the next (probably) month. They’re not expected to be a big deal (click here if you want to see what they’re removing — and have a chuckle at the crazy dude that thinks it’s an implant and that I’m a millionaire), but they’ll mean the occasional day or three of silence.

Anyway, let me start out 2007 with Jacques’s liberty-themed tattoo done by Kat at Underground Arts in Wellington, New Zealand… I figure that BME and its members are in a constant state of testing where personal liberty begins, and at what point the State is willing to step in and punish you for taking control of your own body, assisting someone else in doing so, or in my case, publishing it and promoting it. So fingers crossed that we see those liberties continue to expand in 2007. Although we’ve had a couple rough patches, I think the notion that “freedom of expression” is a right and “self ownership of the body” is an undisputed truth, grow closer to being universally accepted.

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Who owns my body? [The Publisher's Ring]

Wednesday, October 11th, 2006


Who owns my body?

“Nothing is legal with body hacking — so what!?! Why should we respect laws made by people who still believe that man should be like god made him? Why should we respect laws made by people who want to take the control of our destiny?”

- Lukas Zpira

In a recent ModBlog entry I featured someone who’d had a skin removal scar done, which then keloided out of control, constricting his chest and negatively affecting mobility. Instead of going to a doctor or attempting non-surgical options, he chose to have two very experienced body modification practitioners cut off the keloids and stitch him back together (as seen in our scar repair gallery). From a risk point of view the procedure was arguably no more dangerous (perhaps even less, because of the wound closure) than a larger scarification project, let alone implants, tongue splitting, transscrotal piercings, and other common heavy modifications. To ensure healing went went, the practitioners stayed with the client (who was a practitioner himself) for a week afterwards, monitoring the process, and making sure he had full aftercare and treatment. As I write this the procedure is a success and the client is very happy with the results.

However, the two artists found themselves faced with enormous criticism accusing them of having irresponsibly “crossed the line” into medical territory, thereby endangering the client needlessly and putting others in the industry at risk should there be a legal snap-back if anything went wrong — which to me seems about as valid as telling gay men they can’t hold hands in public because it’ll freak out the heterosexuals, causing them to vote against gay marriage. Even though the reaction was likely a bit knee-jerk because the photos were quite graphic, there is some truth to the suggestion that the procedure may have been legally “medical” in nature because scar treatment is something doctors do and consider their territory. So even though in terms of difficulty or risk the procedure was less than almost all surgeries, it could have still caused a legal problem.

Depending on the nation it was done in, a wide range of charges could have been (and still could be) laid, including variations on practising medicine without a license and assault charges. Had the procedure been erotic in nature (subincision or castration for example), additional charges could be laid against media and websites posting photos and discussion of the procedure, including obscenity charges and record-keeping charges (for example, an American site has the legal obligation to share full identification information on the people in all photos of this type with the US government — thus BME is hosted outside of the US).

This all raises an interesting political question — why can’t I ask anyone to perform a “medical” procedure on me? Sure, I might be better off if I went to a doctor. But is it right to force me to go to a doctor? Do I not have the right to make the “wrong” decision? If not, why is it not my choice? It’s not as if I’m asking for the right to drunk drive or some other “wrong” decision that’s going to hurt others — I am asking only for the right of self-determination.

All human rights emerge from the belief that ultimately an individual has the right to choose their own destiny, and as such, all human rights and freedoms are built on the statement that we own ourselves. However, this runs contrary to the legal answer to the question I posed, because I can’t ask just anyone to do the procedure — I can only ask those who are approved by the government, and they usually have the legal obligation to refuse me if the procedure is in any way atypical.

“When there’s another person, if it’s a medical professional, you’re asking someone who is following the rules of the land to do something which, if it’s brand-new, has to be authorized by committee after committee after committee after committee and whatnot so he doesn’t get charged with manslaughter or assault and doesn’t lose his license.”

- Dr. Robert H. Stubbs, MD FRCSC FACS

So if I ask a doctor to do an atypical procedure, they are legally obligated to refuse (unless they’re willing to spend years justifying your case to their superiors). If I ask a friend to do it, they face a variety of criminal charges if they do it. If I do it myself, I risk medical imprisonment (psychiatric commitment, a process by which I can be permanently stripped of all my rights, and medicated against my consent to the point where I can’t defend myself). And if I do somehow get it done, and decide to talk about it publicly, I (or the hosting website that publishes my story and pictures) can be criminally charged for doing so. I think it should be very clear that there are broad limits as to our ownership of our own bodies, with the government determining what we are permitted to do and have done, and by whom.

In this sense, heavy body modification is an active form of political resistance against a system which seeks to make us prisoners under the guise of “protecting” us. Perhaps you agree that most of the time the government is right. Perhaps you are even correct most of the time. But that puts you in a position to help guide people, not to force them to submit to your opinion when it comes to their decisions about themselves. Forcing people under threat of prosecution and imprisonment to make decisions that “they’re better off” making is a slippery slope. Instead of arguing as to where to draw the line in terms of how much freedom the government should “give” people, what we should be arguing about is whether the government even has the right to draw a line telling us how much of ourselves we control and how much they control.

Actually, I’m not even willing to even have the debate — it’s black and white as far as I’m concerned. You can’t be “mostly free”. Mostly free equates to slavery. I’d rather make mistakes as free individual than be successful as a slave (that said, my intention is to be successful as a free individual!). Tell me that’s nonsensical all you want, or that maybe big brother knows better, but I’ve made lots of good decisions, and lots of bad decisions, and I value them all as a part of my life experience. I own myself, and I don’t need to be protected from myself. When I need help from the government, I’m comfortable asking for it. I’m not comfortable having it forced on me.

There are already many laws in place to protect us from the actions of others. A person who claims to be a doctor or otherwise misleads customers about their background can be charged. A person who abuses minors or engages in predatory behaviour (sexually, financially, or otherwise) can be charged. Negligence charges and many others can be used in the case of problematic or abusive practitioners. As far as I’m concerned the only laws in the realm of “practising medicine without a license” should have to do with people pretending to be doctors in name. The specifics of the procedure are irrelevant.

But when it comes down to it, the statement is quite simple:

I own myself. I can leave myself as I am, or I can improve myself as I see fit, or I can even choose to destroy myself. It’s my decision, and my decision alone. Any law that tells me that I don’t own myself, and can’t dictate what is done to by body and by whom, is fundamentally wrong and by definition a tool of those who would enslave others. Worse yet, it belies a flawed foundation upon which true human rights cannot be built.

Until society concedes total individual self ownership, freedom and rights are but a smokescreen.


Shannon Larratt
BMEzine.com

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Calling Body Modification Academics!

Thursday, July 20th, 2006

Seeing as things have gotten stupid round here, recently, I hope you’ll excuse me if I temporarily up the pretension academic quotient.

Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia has been running bi-annual conferences for the academic study of body modification and related subjects since 2003, and the next one, entitled ‘Somatechnics’, has just been announced for April 2007.

‘Somatechnics’ is a newly coined term used to highlight the inextricability of soma and techne, of the body (as a culturally intelligible construct) and the techniques (dispositifs and’hard technologies’) in and through which bodies are formed and transformed. This term, then, supplants the logic of the ‘and’, indicating that technes are not something we add to or apply to the body, but rather, are the means in and through which bodies are constituted, positioned, and lived. As such, the term reflects contemporary understandings of the body as the incarnation or materialization of historically and culturally specific discourses and practices, and of activities involving bodies – in medicine, information technology, education, the arts, surveillance, science, law - as fundamentally formative and transformative, cultural and social.

Abstracts (approx 500 words) are invited for papers/performances/panels for the Somatechnics Conference to be held at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia on April 19th-21st 2007. This is the third in a series of bi-annual conferences: previous conferences were Body Modification: Changing Bodies, Changing Selves(2003), and Body Modification Mark II (2005). Somatechnics’ is the inaugural conference of the Somatechnics Project, a research network whose membership is international and cross-disciplinary.

Possible topics include:

  • Body modification/sculpting
  • Performance art
  • Visual art
  • Medical technologies
  • Enhancement technologies
  • Religious rituals
  • Multi-media technologies
  • Transgender practices and procedures
  • Cosmetic/reconstructive surgeries
  • Obesity, anorexia, and/or other body ‘pathologies’
  • Cyborgs
  • Nanotechnology
  • Euthanasia
  • Reproductive technologies
  • Transplant technologies
  • Incarceration
  • Racialization
  • Torture, terrorism
  • Sport
  • Technologies of gender/race/class/etc

Abstracts (of no more than 500 words) should be sent, as email attachments, to:nikki.sullivan@scmp.mq.edu.au
Further information:
Body Modification Conference Committee
Department of Critical and Cultural Studies
Macquarie University
North Ryde
New South Wales 2109
Australia
Email: bodmod@scmp.mq.edu.au
Phone: + 61 (0)2 9850 8760

I hear from previous attendees that, as is sadly so often the case amongst those who make their careers trying to understand the modified individual and the modified community in general, the number of people attending this event who are modified themselves is depressingly low. Of the prominent academics in the field, few have more than a small number of token tattoos, and from what I’ve been told of the papers presented in previous years, the insights offered have often been massively wide of the mark.

In light of BME’s current front-page poll, I’m posting this because I know that there an ever-increasing number of modded postgraduates whose research is, or would be, very pertinent to the study of their own community. Although there have been two or three worthwhile and sympathetic academic books on body modification in recent years, not one has been written by a heavily modified individual. Although there are a smattering of PhDs on mods every year, there are, as yet, no high-profile academics with heavy mods.

If you’re an postgraduate or even just a passionate and committed independent researcher, I urge you to consider submitting papers to this event. I’ll be there (whether my paper is accepted or not) and I hope to see more sleeves, tongue splits and implants there than have ever been collected at an academic conference before.

Normal service will now be resumed

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